


Experiments Gone Wrong

by TheLateNightStoryTeller



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Experiments gone slightly wrong, F/M, Fitzsimmons in the lab, It's all fluff here, Short Stories
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-16 01:28:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5808025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLateNightStoryTeller/pseuds/TheLateNightStoryTeller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An assembly of short stories about Fitzsimmons in the lab... and when things in the lab don't go exactly as they expect. Started on tumblr but I'm really having fun with these so I am collecting them here :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Scientists in a Beaker

“Ow!” Fitz’s voice echoed off the glass walls and he winced at how high pitched it was. “Ow… Jemma be careful!” he complained when the ball of her foot dug into his hands. She was much lighter than she’d been only a half hour ago but so was he and _it hurt._

“Sorry,” she mumbled, sounding at last genuinely concerned. “I just need you to hold on a bit longer…I’ve almost… got it-“

He strained to look up, seeing her fingers stretching for the lip of the beaker. Why did they have to fall into the 500 ml? There was a perfectly good 50 ml just beside them that they could have easily crawled out of. Not for the first time, Fitz wondered if they had done something to upset the cosmos. Surely no one was _this unlucky._

At least they were together. And at least they hadn’t fallen into the solvent on the other side.  

Jemma’s cry tore him from his thoughts, snapping his attention just in time to catch her as she tumbled back in, softening her fall as best he could.

 _“Ugh!”_ she growled. Her voice was even more high pitched than his was and he couldn’t help thinking of how much she sounded like an angry fairy. “I was so close this time Fitz! But I think it’s just too-“ She cut herself off when she caught him suppressing a smirk. “It’s not funny Fitz,” she scolded.

He snorted. “I’m sorry Jemma but…” He shrugged, shaking his head. “You just… you can hear yourself can’t you?”

“I sound no more ridiculous than you do!” she complained. “And I’m sure you wont find it so  _hilarious_ when we have to spend the night sleeping on this.” She tapped the glass with her foot, the sharp clack a reminder of how hard and uncomfortable it would be.

“You can sleep on me,” he suggested, speaking before he had a chance to check himself and his cheeks burned as soon as his words reached his hears.

Jemma’s eyes softened. “That’s sweet of you,” she told him. “But this is my fault. If anything _you_ should be the one sleeping on _me.”_

“You were the one who told me not touch the cartridges,” he reminded her.

“Not before I noticed you reaching for them,” she defended him. “I should have put them away.”

“I think we can both take responsibility for this… er… predicament…” he decided. The lights in the lab turned off above them and he sighed, sinking down to the floor. “That’s that then. Someone will find us in the morning.”

She settled down beside him and they awkwardly arranged themselves. Stubborn as they were, neither would accept the option of using the other as a pillow, but they did end up squishing together for warmth.

“At least your serum works,” Fitz commented optimistically. “Current circumstances aside I think it’s going to be very useful.”

That made her smile. “Now we just need to come up with a safer deployment method.”

The team found them the next morning, not quite believing their eyes when Bobbi called them into the lab. Coulson frowned in disapproval when Daisy took a picture with her phone of the softly snoring pair but he didn’t stop her.

“Scientists in a beaker,” Mack muttered. “Huh.”

Bobbi leaned towards her, checking out the picture and nodding her approval. “Can you send me a copy?”

Daisy laughed. “I’m sending _everyone_ a copy of this.”


	2. Actually Psychically Linked

 Jemma adjusted the camera, a bubbly smile lighting her face as she stepped back.

“This is test number one of The Ghost Network,” she announced proudly. “A technology Fitz and I have been working on which will allow agents in the field to communicate surface thoughts on a newly discovered frequency. It should be quite useful in situations where our agents need to remain silent or keep a cover.”

“And it’ll mean Hydra’s a lot less likely to intercept our messages,” Fitz added, however he was frowning at the tiny device in his hand as he spoke. “Jemma I’m not entirely sure I want you to  _know_ what I’m thinking…” he worried. “We… we won’t be keeping the record of my thoughts right? We’re going to delete the data after…?”

“Oh Fitz don’t worry. It’s only your surface thoughts remember?” she assured him. “You’ll be in complete control.”

He still seemed uncertain, but he pushed the tiny metal square onto his temple anyhow. It stuck to his skin, vanishing instantly when it made contact. “I know what it does Jemma,” he muttered. “We were the ones who made it.”

“As you can see,” Jemma told the camera, ignoring his grumblings, “we’ve input a camouflage function into our thought transmitter and receiver.”

“Our TTR for short,” Fitz chipped in, smiling despite his unease. Whatever his reservations about being used as a test subject were, he _was_ proud of their work. Besides he had been the one to draw the short straw, it was only fair. “It changes colour and texture to blend in with any human skin it comes in contact with.”

“We wouldn’t want our agents being given away by a square of metal on their head,” Jemma added brightly. “Ready to begin?”

Fitz made a face. “Not really, but go ahead.”

Jemma switched on the computer program which worked with the TTR. “With this program, we can communicate with the field agent from anywhere we have access to a SHIELD computer,” she explained. “And they’ll be able to communicate with us.” She looked up and Fitz realized that was his cue to begin.

Concentrating, he _tried_ to send her the message they’d agreed upon, he really did. However, he was all nerves at the thought of Jemma being able to read his mind and all he could think of was all the things he _shouldn’t_ be thinking right now. When only a minute ago he’d been thinking completely _appropriate_ thoughts, now suddenly his mind felt the need to create a comprehensive list of every part of the male and female anatomy which wasn’t meant to come up in polite conversation.

He saw Jemma’s eyebrows raise, surprised. “Umm… Fitz….”

 _‘Damn it, damn it, damn it!’_ he cursed. _‘Stop thinking about that. And whatever you do, do_ not _think about how much you’d like to see Jemma’s….’_

Now both of them had turned scarlet.

“The camera isn’t-“ he squeaked.

“It’s… it’s not recording what appears on my screen,” she told him, unable to meet his eyes. Her skin was actually a very lovely shade of pink, but he was too mortified by what she was seeing to appreciate it.

 _‘Oh God,_ ’ he lamented, horrified. _‘Now she thinks I’m some sort of pervert.’_

“Oh Fitz I don’t,” she promised, sympathy showing clearly in her eyes when they finally met his and he remembered with a jolt that she must have been able to read that too. “It’s not as if I’m doing any better right now. I’m actually thinking about-“ Her eyes went wide and she bit her lip as she stared down at the keyboard. “It’s just that I’m not the one hooked up to the device,” she mumbled.

 _“I’m sorry,”_ he thought, head in his hands to hide his embarrassment even though there was really no hiding anything at the moment, not from Jemma. _‘I can’t believe that’s the only thought I had about her,”_ he went on, forgetting again that his inner monologue was no longer private. _‘At least I didn’t think about that dream…. No… stop thinking about it… at the beach…STOP IT…. With our children… BANANAS!… We’ve been married for years and we’re watching them play…. Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium… It’s a perfect day….”_

He hadn’t realized he’d shut his eyes until he felt Jemma’s fingers, gently removing the device from the side of his head. When he opened them he saw behind her that the camera had been turned off.

“I think we need to make some adjustments,” she said evenly, placing it back down on the table. When he remained fixated on staring at his hands she took them fondly in her own. “You know you’re not the only one who has dreams like that,” she told him. When he let his gaze rise to fall on her face she was smiling under her flush.

“Yeah?” he whispered, heart fluttering.

Her smile widened and she nodded, shy but certain. “Yeah.” She scrunched her nose, eyes sparkling with affection, and what she said next made his heart leap from his chest. “Except it’s not the beach, we take them to the Planetarium instead.”

/-/-/

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Ghost Network is based off the one in Fringe 
> 
> This is based off me being a weirdo on the bus and thinking what if the person I'm sitting beside can read my mind.....


	3. My Best Spuddy

“Oh no.” Jemma felt her heart constrict when she stepped into the lab, eyes falling on the enormous potato sitting on the stool in front of Fitz’s workbench. Beside it, a package of her newest prototype, _Insta-food_ had been opened, its contents emptied. “Oh no,” she muttered. “No, he didn’t…. he wouldn’t have…”

He would have though. The packet did say _food_ on it after all and if he’d been feeling peckish midway through his work… and the potato was just the right size for….

“Oh no…” she moaned. Life had gone from fine to heinously terrible in a fraction of a second and it left her head spinning. “Oh Fitz, what have I done?”

It would work on humans too… although she’d never considered that it would be a problem. It couldn’t penetrate the skin and minute concentrations finding their way into a cut wouldn’t have any effect. However, if someone were to ingest it…

It was impossible to deny the evidence before her, much as she wanted to, and she felt tears sting her eyes as the realization hit her full on.

Her Fitz had been turned into a potato.

In a single stride she found her way to his side, feeling it over and finding that it was still warm. This had happened recently, if she’d only walked into the lab a few minutes sooner…

Her lip trembled as she let her hand slide down the bumpy skin and she leaned forward, pressing her forehead against the top of it- of _him-_ horrified that his scent had already changed so that it reminded her of crisps rather than her crisp-loving engineer. “Don’t- don’t worry Fitz, I’ll change you back,” she vowed shakily. “I don’t know if you can hear me but…”

Of course he couldn’t hear her. He was a potato, he didn’t have ears or the proper internal structures to process the sound, or a brain to receive and translate the signals…

“Well… no I’m pretty sure you can’t hear me but just in case you can…” She sniffed, holding the vegetable on either side and staring into one of its eyes. “I _am_ going to fix this. I won’t give up on you so…”

She was too distraught to feel ridiculous but she wondered if it was worth trying to reassure him when she was 99% sure he wasn’t able to understand her anyway. After debating for only a moment, she decided it was. If he was aware of what was happening, he was probably frightened and even if there was only a one in a million chance of her being able to communicate _anything_ with him at the moment she was going to take it.

“You never gave up on me, when I was on Maveth,” she told him, steady now, raw determination lending her courage. “And I’m not going to give up on you now Fitz, I’m sure there’s a way to undo this… there must be something…” She faltered, heart breaking as her frantic search for ideas came up empty.

The process wasn’t meant to be reversed, there’d never been a reason to reverse it. _Insta-food_ had been created to allow agents in the field to turn objects into food, potatoes for the first prototype. It had been meant to prevent anyone from going hungry the way she had for those three long weeks, but she’d never considered that it could be dangerous.  _Who would try to eat it?_ Her poor dear Fitz, that's who. 

She bit her lip. No. No there was a way, she couldn’t leave Fitz like this, there had to be a way.

“Don’t be afraid,” she told him, once again holding him between her hands. Her thumbs tenderly rubbing over his bumps, she lay a kiss above one of his eyes. Then her arms wrapped around him, cheek resting on top of him as she held him to her chest. “You are the most important person in my life, I’d fight through six months on that planet all over again, battle my way through Hydra for you. I would do anything to keep you safe." Her embrace tightened protectively. " _A_ _nything._ So I’m sure I can bloody well figure out how to reverse something I created myself.”

“You’d do anything?”

At first she thought she must be hearing things, because potatoes could not talk no matter who they used to be. Then she realized the voice had come from _behind her._

Releasing the spud from her arms to turn around, her heart soared when she caught sight of him. Curly-haired, not quite as pasty as he used to be, _human_ Fitz standing in the doorway with a wheelbarrow.

“You’d do anything… for a potato?” he was frowning at her, clearly concerned. “Jemma did you accidently inhale-“

Whatever he was going to say was cut off when her arms flew around him, the force of her colliding into him pushing him back and making him let go of the handles.

“You didn’t eat it,” she breathed, her voice airy with relief. “You aren't a potato.”

“I’m not…” His confusion was only momentary though. “You thought that was _me?”_

She pulled away, slightly offended. “What did you think, that I was confessing my love to a vegetable?”

“Confessing your…” He trailed off, ears reddening and although she felt her own cheeks flushing, and she hadn’t quite meant to reveal so much, she wasn’t about to deny that it was _true._

“I meant every word of it,” she told him, staring into his perfectly blue eyes.

In place of a response his lips met hers and she felt static crackle across her stomach until he pulled away, grinning.

“I should have told you I was testing it, that was a crate of packing peanuts,” he explained. “I thought we could all have chips for supper tonight.”

Jemma grimaced, shaking her head. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to eat anything with potatoes in it for a bit.”

He tilted his head, eyebrows raised in sympathy although she could tell he was trying not to laugh. “I don’t need to eat your best spuddy if you’ve grown attached-“ he teased.

Huffing her disapproval, she smacked his arm. “Says the man who wouldn’t eat fish for three months after visiting the aquarium.” He blushed again and she pushed her face into his chest, breathing in his starch-free scent and feeling her heart fill.

Never in her life had she been so glad about being wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had way too much fun with this. And chatting about it with Fitzsimmonsgarbage :D Thanks for encouraging my weirdness ;)


	4. Time (Part 1)

“You’re doing it again,” Jemma grumbled, shifting her gaze momentarily from the screen of her computer to glare at her counterpart across the room.

“Now I can’t even look at him?” the other woman challenged. She folded her arms across her chest, lips pressed together, though Fitz was sure he saw a flash of amusement run across her face.

“Not like that you can’t,” Jemma muttered, focusing once again the screen in front of her. She tapped a few keys, hissing in frustration at the low _beep beep_ sounding from the speakers which told her it hadn’t worked. She tried again, continuing to mutter under her breath. “It’s completely inappropriate.”

“I don’t know what you think I’m doing-“ she began only to be interrupted when another error sound caused Jemma to let out a growl of frustration.

“You know exactly what you’re doing,” she snapped. Her eyes fell on Fitz, flaring, and he held his breath in hope that maybe if he didn’t move she wouldn’t say anything. He was wrong of course. “Fitz tell her!” she insisted, eyebrows flying up when she didn't receive his immediate support. “Tell her she’s being inappropriate.”

“I…” he looked from one woman to the other, telling them apart only by the streaks of grey that ran through the hair of the one sitting next to him, the crinkles around her eyes, and the smile she was barely supressing which, at the moment, seemed the greatest contrast between the two. His Jemma, his Jemma right now anyhow, had a scowl on her face that would make a moray eel proud. “Well you have been…” he started, addressing the older Jemma, but he stopped himself as he realized how presumptuous it sounded. Surely she hadn’t been _checking him out_ , as the current Jemma had accused only a few minutes ago. “I’m not sure I should be getting involved in this,” he said sheepishly after a pause.

He’d been calling the older one Dr. Simmons in an attempt to differentiate them, and she laughed as Jemma puffed out an irritated sigh. Fitz wasn’t sure which he disliked more, but at least one of the three of them was enjoying herself. Dr. Simmons had only been with them for a six hours, slipping through a portal they’d made accidentally in an attempt to teleport an apple from one side of the room to the other. Neither of them had any idea why Dr. Simmons had appeared instead, or how to return her to where she came from, but she didn’t seem all that concerned so he was guessing that they would eventually.

At that moment, he was sitting next to her on one of the lab stools, sharing a bowl of pretzels as he rested his eyes. Five hours attempting to create a model of the portal that would bring her home had left them sore and dry.

“And you’re _sure_ you can’t _tell us how_ to put you back where you came from?” Jemma asked Dr. Simmons, not for the first time since she’d arrived, exasperation weaving it’s way through the question.

“It would create a bootstrap paradox,” she answered simply. She bit into a pretzel, chewing it slowly as she waited for her doppelganger's reply.

Jemma scoffed, arms crossing over her chest. “A bootstrap paradox?”

“If she tells you, then that’d mean that you’d learned how to do it because she knew how to do it, but she only knew how to do it because she taught _you_ ,” Fitz explained, his hands moving in a circle between them as he spoke. “It-“

“It’d mean that the information has no actual source,” Jemma interrupted impatiently. “I know what a bootstrap paradox is Fitz. I do watch science _fiction_ you know. I still don’t see why that means she can’t tell me.”

“You will,” Dr. Simmons assured her, earning herself another glare.

Unimpressed, she set back to work, stewing at the both of them. Fitz didn’t really think it was deserved on his part, he’d been an innocent victim in this entire argument, and he couldn’t understand why she was so irked by his refusal to choose a side. 

However, the unfairness of the situation was not what he had on his mind when he turned to Dr. Simmons, lowering his voice as he asked his question to avoid it reaching Jemma’s ears. He didn't think she would yield an answer but he felt he needed to try, because this was  _Jemma._ Alive at least, year from now, and he was hungry to know more, to know  _her._

“You’re happy? Where you’re from, you’re happy there?” he asked, searching her face for clues as he spoke and receiving a warm smile instead.

To his surprise, she lifted her hand, fingers painting a line down the side of his cheek, her touch as tender as it was fleeting. “Of course you would wonder that,” she cooed.

Jemma cleared her throat and his head snapped towards her, ears burning, as Dr. Simmons coolly shifted her gaze towards the sound.

“You can’t tell us how to send you back, or how to defeat Hydra, or _anything_ about our future or you might _mess up the timeline_.” She emphasized the final words with her disbelief. “But you can run your hands all over him, probably leaving skin and bacteria that shouldn't even exist yet, and who knows what else, behind?”

“She wasn’t-“ Fitz protested, eyes wide as he shook his head, but Jemma cut him off.

“Fitz I need you over here,” she said curtly. “Now.”

He cast Dr. Simmons a helpless glance, seeing her mouth _sorry_ before he was scrambling across the room.

“Will this work?” she demanded, gesturing roughly towards the display.

Fitz looked it over, nodding to himself as he checked over the calculations she'd added onto his own. He was smiling when he turned to look at her. “I think so.”

She smiled back, fondness sparkling out from under the dark circles around her eyes, and he knew she wasn’t going to hold anything that had happened, or more accurately _hadn’t_ happened between him and Dr. Simmons, against him. She was exhausted, like they always were these days, and now they had Dr. Simmons to send home on top of all their other work and she wasn’t even going to give them anything useful even though she _could_ if she chose to. He understood Jemma’s frustration even if, unlike her, he also understood Dr. Simmons’ caution.

Besides he'd gotten all the information _he_ needed simply by meeting her. She was alive and she still knew how to smile. That was enough for him. 

He rose his head, addressing Dr. Simmons now. “Ready to go home?”

In response she leaned back against the side of the desk, watching them curiously. “Go on,” she encouraged.

Fitz and Jemma exchanged a glance, Jemma’s shoulders rising in a weary shrug, before she hit the button to transfer their program to what was supposed to be their teleportation machine.

They’d shaped the machine to look like a Tardis, making the decision together when they’d found out that it’d need to be a box, jumping around like children at the idea until Daisy, giggling at them from the entrance, had brought them back out of their bubble world. Neither of them had ever imagined how accurate the outer shape would reflect it's function.

“I hope this works,” Jemma said loudly, glancing at Dr. Simmons as she stepped forward to initiate the opening of the portal, a thin layer of shimmering light that formed in place of the front wall when the machine was turned on.

Dr. Simmons stared patiently forward, not a hint on her face as to what was about to happen.

With one last sigh of exasperation and a nod from Fitz, Jemma turned on the machine.

 /-/-/

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to agI03 for letting me bounce ideas off you :D Thanks to you this is way longer than it was originally going to be hahahha, and probably more fun too :P
> 
> This is part 1, part 2 (Space) will be posted probably tomorrow. :) Still working on it and it's a *bit* longer than this chapter. I hope you wont mind since I think this was advertised as shorter stories. But this one kept getting bigger :P oops


	5. Space (Part 2)

The portal opened, at first just a shimmering blur, but then a shadow appeared, clearing quickly into a figure with a familiar face which lit when his eyes met hers.

“Jemma?!” he cried, grinning in delight as he sprung forward.

His arms were around her before she had a chance to protest. He was cradling her against him before she could tell him he was mistaken, and she was opening her mouth to say something when his head leaned back and his lips met hers with such enthusiasm that it made her quiver even as she moved to pull away.

He tilted his head, confused by her behaviour. “What’s wrong?” he asked, disappointed but allowing her to squirm out of his arms.

“You’ve got the wrong person,” Fitz growled, face red and fists clenched. “ _That’s_ what’s wrong.”

The new Fitz jolted at his voice and Jemma’s Fitz stepped forward, likely wanting to wedge himself in between them but before he could the new Fitz had pushed her behind him, muscles tensed and ready to spring.

“Jemma don’t listen to him,” he warned, disdainfully looking her Fitz up and down. “He’s clearly some sort of inferior copy. You stay away from her,” he snarled at Fitz.  

“No, no you’ve made a mistake-“ she tried to protest, but her mouth shut with a clack when she caught sight of what he was wearing.

Fitz huffed. “Listen you-“ he began, only to cut himself off as he took in his double properly.  

He’d seen what she had, that this was not the Fitz whose world they’d been searching for. He was too young, about the same age as they were, with a scar on his cheek and a black jacket that, upon closer inspection, sported an eerily familiar patch over the left shoulder.

“You’re… you’re _Hydra?!”_ Fitz gasped.

Flinching, Jemma stumbled backwards, away from the possibly dangerous stranger. She turned to Dr. Simmons, eyes round in desperation.

“He’s not yours?” she demanded. “He’s… he’s too young he can’t be…” She was nearly certain he wasn’t, but she needed the confirmation from her own double that this… this aberration… was not their future.

The new Fitz looked between them, confusion now giving way to hurt, and her Fitz had gone pale as he spun around to face Dr. Simmons.

“Please tell me I don’t-“ he choked.

“He’s not from our timeline,” Dr. Simmons assured them calmly. She was still watching them, watching but not interfering. It was driving Jemma mad, but at least she’d had the decency to put them at ease.

She and Fitz let out synchronized sighs of relief, however new Fitz, _Hydra_ Fitz, tensed between them.

“No,” he breathed. Then louder, almost a screech. “ _No!”_

The younger two SHIELD agents jumped away from him, finding their way back to each other as he spun on his heels, knocking a case of beakers to the floor with a grunt of frustration.

Fitz’s shoulder brushed hers, his arm held protectively in front of her, however the outburst was short lived and when Hydra Fitz turned back around he was holding his head in one hand, eyes shut tight in an expression of such misery that it drew Jemma forward despite her initial alarm.

“Be careful,” Fitz warned warily when she weaved around his arm. She saw out of the corner of her eye that he was ready for a fight should the situation call for one, however she had a feeling it wouldn’t.

Hydra Fitz frowned and shook his head, eyes narrowed at SHIELD Fitz. “I’d never hurt Jemma,” he told him indignantly, offended at the very idea. He turned his gaze on her and she found herself, cautiously, believing him. “Not any version of you,” he vowed. “I just…” He blew out a ragged breath, the corners of his mouth turning downwards as he fought back tears. “I thought I’d finally found…”

“You lost her,” Jemma guessed, not needing to specify who, and he nodded miserably. Her footsteps had taken her to his side and she sensed rather than saw how anxious that had made her Fitz behind her.

Hydra Fitz nodded wretchedly. “Or… or more accurately _I_ was lost. I’ve been making my way from one world to another for months and I _know_ she’s looking for me. I know I should be able to find my home I just…” The pain in his voice broke her heart. “You look so much like her and this world is the closet I’ve ever come to my own, but it’s still not right is it?” His palms pressed into his eyelids. “I just want to go home,” he mumbled.

“We can help you,” she offered, hesitating for only a second before placing a hand on his shoulder. The muscles beneath his jacket were solid and well defined, different from what she was used to, but he smelled the same. “We’re scientists just like you are.”

“SHIELD scientists,” Fitz added hotly. “Jemma we can’t trust him! Look at him! He’s-“

“He’s lost,” she finished stubbornly, removing her hand from the new Fitz to face her own. “He’s had his world taken away from him and whoever he is…” She shook her head. “No one deserves that Fitz.”

Fitz scowled at his almost mirror image, arms crossed over his chest. Then, after enduring the pleading stares from the pair across from him for a full thirty seconds, he sighed, shrugging his shoulders in acceptance. “Fine, I’ll help. But no funny business,” he added, jabbing a finger at Hydra Fitz. “And no… you just keep your hands to yourself.”

Hydra Fitz raised the hands in question defensively. “I made a mistake,” he admitted. However, when his eyes met Jemma’s he smirked. “I think it’s understandable though. You are as beautiful and kind as my own Jemma.” he told her earnestly, making her cheeks flush as Fitz snorted in annoyance, muttering something about Hydra being scum.

“You’ve made your decision?” Dr. Simmons asked, drawing their attention back to her. She’d been so quiet throughout the ordeal it had been easy to allow her presence to go unnoticed.

Jemma and Fitz exchanged a glance before nodding in unison.

Dr. Simmons smiled. “Well I supposed I should get you home then Fitz.”

“You’re joking?” Jemma gasped. “You’ll take a complete stranger home but you wont take _yourself?_ And why did we need to agree to it first?”

“I don’t make up the laws of physics, I’m just clever enough not to violate them,” Dr. Simmons answered with a shrug.

“They _sound_ made up to me,” Jemma muttered.

“I’m going home?” Hydra Fitz’s voice beside her, light with hope, refocused her priorities.

“It looks like you are,” she told him brightly.

The grin on his face made his eyes dance, and she wondered how someone so like her Fitz could work for Hydra. “I should have known a world with _two_ Jemmas in it would have a solution,” he mused, teasing out another blush, this time from both of them.

Dr. Simmons made her and Fitz stand outside while she prepared the machine for Hydra Fitz’s journey home, much to Jemma’s annoyance and continued grumblings. A kiss on her hand from Hydra Fitz, deciding to introduce himself properly, had put Fitz in a foul mood as well, so the pair of them sat in irritated silence as they waited.

At last it was Fitz who broke it.

“You don’t think we’re doing damage, sending him back, do you?” he asked.

“Because he’s Hydra?’ Jemma guessed, receiving a nod from her partner. “I don’t know Fitz.” She shrugged. “Maybe Hydra aren’t bad people where he’s from.”

“You’d think _good_ people wouldn’t have a skull as their symbol,” he reminded her darkly.

Jemma bit her lip, debating with herself. “He was lost,” she said at last and, after a silent but meaningful exchange between them, that was enough to end the debate.

Dr. Simmons invited them in once she was finished, allowing them to see him off even if she hadn’t allowed them a peek at how she’d done it. Jemma wondered how she could have so much patience, being stranded somewhere she didn’t belong, but maybe she’d seen all this play out already. And maybe she took twisted amusement in letting them run in circles while she had the answer to their problem.

The portal shimmered again, the scene on the other side of it slowly coming into focus. It was a lab, Hydra’s familiar logo on the far wall and its occupants clad in black lab coats. One occupant in particular caught the eye of everyone in the room and Hydra Fitz leapt forward the instant he spotted her, shouting out her name in triumphant joy.

She was already in his arms by the time his name left her own lips and it turned into delighted laughter when he lifted her up, spinning her around before raining kisses onto her tear streaked face. The entire lab was bursting into applause when Dr. Simmons shut the portal and the blue door appeared in place of the other world.

“That was…” Fitz began, mouth still hanging open.

“They really love each other,” Jemma marveled. She’d seen how frightened he’d been, how alone, but _that,_ that had been something else entirely. “Surely that means that Hydra in their world isn’t… it’s not like in our world…”

“Do you really think only good people fall in love?” Dr. Simmons asked, regarding her the way a teacher would a primary school student struggling over a math problem, and for the first time Jemma felt curiosity rather than agitation.

“Do you know if Hydra is different where they’re from?” she inquired. She wasn’t sure why it mattered so much, but she was finding that it did. How could something so pure and beautiful come from two souls who might have caused so much devastation? How could she look at them and see what she felt for Fitz?

Dr. Simmons was shaking her head though. “I don’t know.”

The portal shimmered once again, this time of it’s own accord and, though Fitz and Jemma snapped around in surprise, Dr. Simmons only smiled, as if she’d been expecting it all along. Which, if Jemma thought about it, she probably was.

“I think it would be best if the two of you waited on the other side of your Tardis,” she suggested, motioning with her head. “This isn’t a world you should know yet.”

As tempting as it was to protest, Jemma didn’t think she wanted to. Maybe her older self really did know something about time travel that she didn’t and besides, she knew what her future was already. So she took Fitz by the hand, leading him to the other side of the box where they’d be able to see Dr. Simmons, but not the door.

“Good bye Jemma,” Fitz called, gifting her with her first name as they parted.

“Good bye… me…” Jemma called beside him, earning herself a chuckle.

“Good bye,” she replied, sweeping a fond gaze over the pair of them before her eyes settled on whatever was on the other side of the portal, sparkling as her smile rose up towards her ears. “You took your time,” she teased, scrunching her nose at whoever it was.

She didn’t rush forward in relief the way Hydra Fitz had, but her eagerness to reunite with the unseen person made her glide like a ship caught in the wind, forwards and out of sight.

Jemma didn’t need to see the portal to know who it was, she’d seen it clearly in her double’s face, in that smile that looked the way _she_ only felt for one person in the universe. His hand was in her own now, a warm tether of love and happiness, and she was certain that it was the same hand, years later, she was taking again.

The moment the portal closed, the pair collapsed to the ground, still holding onto each other as they slept. They would awaken, an hour later, missing time and blaming their teleportation device. What happened that day would remain a secret, until Jemma took it back with her to her own Fitz far in their future. It would not be until three years from that day that Fitz and Jemma would even realize they'd created a time machine. A year after that they would vow never to use it and, together, they would write the first laws of time and interdimensional travel.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to agI03 for helping inspire me for this story :D. When I asked Future Jemma or Hydra Fitz? you answered both and that is why this. XD


	6. Miniaturization

Bobbi Morse had plenty of experience convincing people to do what she wanted them to do. She’d interrogated hardened criminals, persuaded high ranking agents to make game altering decisions. If someone had asked her yesterday if she could persuade a couple of kids to cooperate with them, she would have laughed at the question.

Not today though. Today, confronted with a pair of frightened nine year olds, sitting with their stools pushed close together and their tiny feet dangling out from under their oversized lab coats, she was not laughing.

“You have to believe that we don’t want to hurt you,” she insisted, leaning forward with her hands on her lap in yet another attempt to appear trustworthy. “We’re your friends, you must remember that?”

Jemma’s lip trembled, her round eyes misting over. “They’re sending us to secret agent prison,” she wailed, shoving her face into Fitz’s shoulder in a vein attempt to hide the fact that she’d began to cry. “Th- they’ll separate us and then…” She hiccupped, miserable. “And they’ll probably probe our brains.”

Fitz grew solemn at the mention of brain probing, but he managed to keep his voice even as he reassured her. “No one’s separating us,” he said stubbornly. His hand smoothed to the top of her hair but he himself looked on the verge of tears as he glared at Bobbi, head shaking from side to side in disgust. ‘ _You should be ashamed of yourself,’_ his expression read.

“We don’t want to separate you,” she promised. “We just need you to help us fix your machine-“

“I don’t remember building a machine,” Fitz shot back.

Jemma sniffed, turning her head to peek out with one puffed, watery eye. “They’ve obviously found out about our genius,” she whispered to him grimily. “And now they’ve kidnapped us to do their dirty work. Don’t listen to them Fitz, no matter what they threaten to do. We can’t let them destroy the world!”

Fitz’s eyes narrowed to slits, shooting daggers in Bobbi’s direction and his mouth clamped shut. He shifted so that his body was partially shielding his friend, the wobbling of his bottom lip the only giveaway of how scared he was.

Somehow Bobbi had ended up the bad guy in all this, even though she hadn’t actually _done_ anything to either of them. She’d walked in to find the pair of mini-Fitzsimmons stumbling out of a smoking metal chamber, disoriented and with no memory of who they were as adults.

Except, strangely, that they were friends. The two seemed to know instinctively that they were close, best friends was what they’d told her actually, but when she’d questioned them about it, how long they’d know each other they’d simply shrugged and answered _always_ in unison.

Messaging her forehead between her thumb and her index finger, she racked her brain for something that would convince them to trust her.

“Can I have a glass of water?” Jemma asked, blinking owlishly as she raised her head. “Please.” She added when Bobbi raised an eyebrow.

“Jemma don’t take anything from-“ Fitz warned but she kicked at his ankle with her tiny foot and he jolted in his seat, leaning away crossly. “Ouch! Hey!”

The small girl sat straight in the stool, hands on her lap the way Bobbi had been only a minute earlier. “Please Miss Bobbi, could I have a glass of water.” 

Thinking that at last she’d found a way to prove herself, Bobbi cast her a friendly smile. “Of course. You keep a cup by the sink.”

“The Grumpy Cat one’s _mine_ ,” Fitz told her. It was just her luck that he could remember _that_ and not who she was. She turned on the tap, rinsing the mug before filling it up, hearing Fitz's whisper to Jemma over gurgling spray. “What are you- Ow!” It was strange hearing his voice that high pitched and squeaky, especially when he shouted. “Jemma! Stop kicking me!”

“It isn’t nice to kick your friends,” Bobbi scolded, returning with the mug full. “I know they say words hurt but so do…” she frowned at the deer in headlights look the pair of them shot her when she caught sight of them, Jemma’s hand shoved behind her back the second she’d turned around. “What do you have there?”

“I don’t… I didn’t take anything,” Jemma defended, shaking her head like she was trying to chase off a fly.

Bobbi rose her eyebrows, disbelieving, and held out the water. “How about we trade,” she offered amicably.

“Or how about you take both,” Jemma squeaked, thrusting forth a beaker with a bright silver rock which she dumped into the mug with a _thunk._

And then the water was on fire.

“Whaa!” Bobbi dropped the now aflame offering, jumping back when it shattered into a blazing puddle.

“I told you not to take the Grumpy Cat mug!” Fitz wailed, but Jemma was grabbing his arm, pulling him away.

“Fitz run!” she urged.

Too late the boy made to scurry after her and Bobbi managed to snag hold of his arm.

“No you don’t,” she grunted, patience thin as she scanned around for Jemma.

Her other charge had doubled back, screeching like a hawk as she pelted towards her, hands like talons. “You let him go!”

Before Bobbi could flinch, tiny fingers were clawing at her hand and pointy little teeth clamped down on the sleeve of her, fortunately padded, field clothes. She didn’t manage to do any damage but the shock at how hard she was trying to made her jerk her arm back.

_When did she get so feral?_

The rock was still spinning around in the water, a chunk of Potassium Jemma had probably snagged of the shelf when her back had been turned, now little more than a pebble and the two of them were out of the lab and disappearing into the hallway before she realized her pant leg was on fire.

/-/-/

“Hunter this isn’t going to work,” Bobbi warned, leaning against a wall as she watched him set up the camouflage net. A heaping plate of warm chocolate chip cookies had been placed in the middle of the trap, the sweet, sugary smell wafting tantalizingly down the hallway.

“They’re nine years old Bob,” he protested, ignoring her pessimism and continuing his work. “Kids like cookies, don’t they? And they’ll be hungry after all the running around they’ve been doing.”

“I think they’re in the walls,” she guessed, looking them up an down. She was actually a little surprised that they’d already learned how to work the base’s secret passageways, but after what they’d pulled with the water she wasn’t willing to underestimate them again.

“But they’ve come out at least a few times,” Hunter reminded her, giving the net a tug so that it disappeared into the floor, matching the colours beneath it seamlessly.

Bobbi frowned. Two of the computers were still in lock down mode, activated by a string of incorrect passwords typed in with tiny fingers, and Daisy, Mack and Hunter were all locked out of the cell phone’s they’d left lying unattended a few minutes too long. The base had nearly self destructed when they’d tried to hack into the main phone system. “I think they were trying to call the police.”

“Or their mums,” he agreed. “They really don’t remember us?”

She shook her head, shoulders shrugging helplessly.

“But they remember each other?” he questioned, disbelieving. “Didn’t they meet when they were eighteen?”

“Seventeen,” Bobbi corrected. “Hey don’t ask me to make sense of it,” she defended, raising her hands when he lifted an eyebrow. “I barely know how their machine works. All they told us was they were working on a way to heal injured agents.”

“Maybe it worked a bit too well,” Hunter muttered. “Healed getting older too.”

Miniature elephants pounded behind the wall and they exchanged a glance.

“Better hide,” Hunter suggested.

“I still don’t think this is going to work,” Bobbi told him, complying anyway.

“Not if you tip them off,” he grumbled, crouching beside her behind a stack of crates.

Bobbi pulled out a mirror, angling it to see the tiny scientist- now dressed in the oversized black field clothes they’d somehow managed to snag a hold of- come skipping around the corner. Jemma’s eyes lit at the sight of the plate but Fitz shot his arm out in front of her before she could canter towards them, holding a finger to his lips. Eyes widening in understanding, she nodded at him and began scanning the area around them, evidently looking for the trap.

Hunter mouthed a curse word and Bobbi smirked despite herself. _I told you they were clever little monsters._

As Bobbi and Hunter watched through her mirror, Fitz pulled out a sticky hand from his jacket pocket. Bright green and sparkly, the stretchy toy _could_ be used to reel in smaller objects but the plate of cookies would be much too heavy for it. She exchanged a glance with Hunter, amused.

Then Jemma pulled a tiny plastic container from her own pocket. It looked like a bottle of super glue but the two adults recognized what it actually was, something a bit stronger than that. Hunter raised his eyebrows, disbelieving, as Fitz allowed her to dab a glob onto the hand and then, tongue sticking out in concentration, he spun the thing above his head before lunging it at the plate. It hit the edge, plastic instantly bonding to ceramic with a hiss, and before Hunter’s jaw could drop in disbelief, he was pulling the cookies towards them.

“Little imps!” he cried. He barged out from behind the crate, causing the pair to start, Fitz letting out a yelp and Jemma grabbing his baggy sleeve. “OK you two, you’ve had you’re laugh…”

He was inching towards them, one step forward for every step back they took, still clutching their prize as well as each other, every inch taking him closer to the-

“Hunter be careful!” Bobbi called, jolting out to try to pull him back but, too late, getting caught up in the trap herself.

With their limbs tangled and their bodies squished together several feet above the ground, they heard a chorus of giggles below and twisted to see the mini Fitz and Jemma clap their hands together in a triumphant high five.

“Oh, you think this is funny do you?” Hunter hissed. “Just wait until we get down, I’ll-“

“We’ll get you some dinner and let you call your parents OK?” Bobbie lied, talking over him before he could alienate them even more than they already had. “Just let us down and we’ll figure this all out.”

“It looks like we already have our dinner,” Fitz taunted. He shoved a cookie in his smug little mouth before allowing Jemma to take his hand, sticking her tongue out at Bobbi and Hunter as she did, and the two of them galloped away with the sweets.

/-/-/

Half an hour later, Fitz and Jemma sat cozily in the little mouse-hole they’d found while exploring the secret passages. The entrance was a hole in the wall, blasted away from some sort of explosion, and too small for a full grown agent to get through. Perfect for them though.

“My stomach hurts,” Fitz complained. He was holding his abdomen, his face having taken on a greyish complexion.

“Well you shouldn’t have eaten so many cookies,” Jemma scolded, rolling up her enormous sleeves when they once again fell down past her hands. It was getting really frustrating to not have clothes that fit properly. She kept tripping on her pants and it was difficult to read the map they’d stolen when it kept being obscured by the fabric of her shirt. “I _told_ you to stop after the first four.”

“You’re not the boss of me,” Fitz shot back grumpily. “And I was _hungry_.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh Fitz, can’t you think of something other than your stomach? We need to get out of here before they catch us and…” She bit her lip, falling silent, but Fitz could see the tears welling up in her eyes. It frightened him.

“Jemma don’t cry,” he pleaded. If she started, he was going to start too and then this was going to be even _worse._

She sniffed, stubbornly pawing at her eyes. “I’m not crying,” she muttered.

He needed to stop this before it got out of control. “Do you want the last cookie?” he offered, pushing the plate towards her. The thought of anymore sweets made him nauseous anyway.

Her head shook, knees coming up to her chest. She rested her chin on them holding them tightly. “I don’t feel well either.”

They’d been sitting across from each other, on either side of the plate of cookies, and now he crawled over to her side, squirming close to her so that their shoulders squished together. When she only sniffed again, he nudged her knee with his, trying to smile.

“My mum makes really good cottage pie,” he told her optimistically. “I’m sure she’ll let you have some too when we get home.”

Her head tilted, cheek resting on her leg, so that she could see him. “My dad can take us to the observatory,” she added, offering up a tiny smile. “There’s a telescope so powerful you can see the rings on Saturn.” Then she frowned, eyes clouding. “But… but Fitz, we live in different countries.”

“I’ll call you every day,” he promised. “I’ll start a paper route if my mum complains about the long distance charges.”

That made her smile too, but her frown returned as she lifted her head, shaking it back and forth. “No, but how do we _know each other._ ”

“You’re my best friend,” he said, as if it were as simple as that.

“But _how_?” Jemma questioned.

How?

He frowned too now, trying to remember, but he couldn’t. He didn’t have any memories of the girl sitting beside him, and yet he knew, without a doubt, that she was important to him.

“I don’t know Jemma,” he admitted. “Maybe they did something to us. But it… it doesn’t change things does it?” He held his breath as he waited for the answer, stomach churning because with all that was happening, if he lost Jemma too, he wasn’t sure what he was going to do.

“No,” she said immediately. “Of course not. You’re my best friend too. I just wanted to know how.”

Fitz let himself exhale again, light with relief. “Maybe our parents can tell us,” he decided. “But we need to get out of here first.”

Jemma smiled again, bumping their legs together as she did, and this time it reached her up into her eyes, making them sparkle. “I think I might have found a way for us to do that,” she told him.

He followed her finger, pointing down towards the map, and his eyes widened.

_That would definitely work._

/-/-/

“How long have they been missing?” May asked flatly, watching as Daisy lowered a disgruntled Bobbi and Hunter back down to the floor.

“We were calling for help for forty minutes,” Hunter grumbled. Finally, free, he winced as he rolled his evidently stiff shoulders.

“We think they’re hiding in the secret passages,” Bobbi added, messaging the back of her neck.

Coulson stood beside May, holding a tablet with a map of the base, and she leaned over to look when it started flashing red.

“Looks like they’re out,” he said grimly. “But what are they doing in the…?“

May raised her eyebrows, more than a little annoyed. “Take a guess.”

A loud bang shook the walls, grit raining down from the ceiling.

His shoulders fell and he exchanged a glance with a stone-faced May. “Great.”

/-/-/

“Fitz you said you could fly it!” Jemma exclaimed, gripping tightly to the fabric of his shirt. Her fingers dug into it like the claws of a frightened cat, and she was certain that if her hair could stand straight up it would be doing just that at the moment.

“I solved the problem didn’t I?” he insisted, voice grating under the stress. He gestured to the smoking hole before them. “We needed a way out. Now we have one.”

“Because you blew a hole in the wall!” she shrieked. She could see a patch of grass, night sky above a bundle of trees. “Tell me you did that on purpose.”

He swallowed, not meeting her gaze.

“Fitz!”

“It’s not the same kind of plane I flew on my Play Station!” he defended. “It has more buttons!”

“You should have made sure it was the same kind!” she shot back. “What if you’d _hit someone?!”_

He huffed at her, squirming out of her grasp as he stood up. “Well I didn’t hit anyone. And we need to go.”

“Out… out there?” Her stomach clenched. It didn’t seem like a good idea, not one bit, to venture out alone into the vast unknown darkness. “I thought we were flying out. What if they have dogs… or… or bears-“

“They’re not going to have bears Jemma,” he objected, rolling his eyes at her. He tugged at her arm but her feet were frozen to the spot. “C’mon, we have to go before they find us.”

“But they might have dogs,” she whispered. Big dogs with pointy white teeth, ready to tear them to pieces.

At last he looked properly afraid, his face paper white. Then he shook his head stubbornly. “ _I’m_ not going to let some stupid dog get us,” he vowed. “We’ll climb a tree if we hear them coming.”

That did sound like a good plan.

He took her hand and she let him pull her forward, towards the back of the jet. Maybe it wouldn’t be so big outside with Fitz with her, and maybe they didn’t have dogs. If they did, at least there’d be two sets of eyes and ears looking out for them instead of one.

 Before they could step onto the ramp however, a woman with dark hair and a straight face appeared at the bottom, her arms crossed over her chest.

“Andromeda,” she said, surprisingly gentle for her rough exterior, her eyes resting on Jemma as she spoke. Then she turned to Fitz. “Cheerful the cat.”

The wave of relief nearly knocked her off of her feet and beside her she heard Fitz gasp. Then the two of them were running down the ramp, arms clamping around the mysterious woman’s middle as their stories tumbled out over each other.

“They were going to probe our brains-“

“-trapped them in a net-“

“-I think the cookies might have been poisoned-“

“-it was Fitz’s idea to blow a hole in the wall-“

“OK,” May soothed, stopping them with a hand on each of their backs. “It’s all over. You’re safe now.”

Safe. Still clinging to their hero, she and Fitz turned their heads to meet each other’s eyes, grinning widely. Of course someone had come to rescue them. She wasn’t sure why, but this woman seemed to be exactly right for that sort of thing.

As they were walking with her back into the base, promised peanut butter sandwiches and hot chocolate, she finally put her finger on the reason. It was her voice that had given it away and Jemma was surprised she hadn’t realized it sooner.

This woman was Mulan!

/-/-/

Nearly an hour later May sat on a crate just outside the lab, the tiny scientists fast asleep with their heads resting on her lap. Jemma was curled into a ball, sideways with feet tucked in and a loose fist grabbing onto May’s pant leg, while Fitz lay on his back, mouth open halfway and his arm dangling off the side of the crate.

Bobbi and Hunter slipped out into the hallway, shutting the door gently behind them.

“Our back up team is almost done with the machine,” Bobbi told her. “It should be ready to turn them back in a few minutes.” She smiled, warm eyes rolling over the softly snoring pair. “I almost wish we could leave them like this,” she added wistfully. “I haven’t seen them so peaceful in a long time.”

“You don’t remember what they were like when they were awake do you?” Hunter objected grumpily. When his partner rolled her eyes at him he crossed his arms over his chest, pouting, and nodded towards May. “How’d you get them to listen to you?”

May’s left hand was already resting protectively on Jemma’s back and, as Fitz began to roll over towards the edge of his perch, she caught him with her right, pulling him back. “I called their parents,” she answered simply. “Asked for their safe words.”

Hunter frowned. “Their what?”

But Bobbi was smacking her forehead, grunting in annoyance at herself. “Of course, why didn’t I think of that?” When Hunter only raised an eyebrow she went on to explain. “When I was a kid my parents gave me a word that only someone they’d sent would know, a friend or a relative, in case someone had to come get me. I wasn’t supposed to go with anyone who didn’t know it.” She turned to May, impressed. “I didn’t know you were so good with kids.”

May shrugged, silent as she continued to watch over her charges, but Bobbi was sure she could see what she was thinking in her expression.

_I’m good with my kids._

 /-/-/

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to the anon who requested this :D 
> 
> And thanks to agI03 for all your help with some fun stuff kids might do :P
> 
> I don't think this is exactly how Fitzsimmons would have been as kids, it's more like Fitzsimmons now if they were kids. (If that makes any sense :P)
> 
> Ming-Na Wen played the voice of Mulan, and I have heard more than once that kids really like her :P (thanks again agI03)
> 
> Potassium is a very reactive element that is solid at room temperature. It is soft and easy to cut and reacts violently with water to form a solution of Potassium hydroxide, releasing energy in the form of heat and light. Apparently it burns pale lilac.


	7. Things Not Seen

“Jemma?” Fitz called her name the moment he appeared in the doorway, sweeping his gaze across the lab as he searched her out. “Jemma what’s happening? You said it was an emergency…”

“I’m here,” she told him, waving her hand in the air to snag his attention until she realized the futility of the action and let it fall back to her side. “Right here, by the centrifuge.”

Confused, he ambled over to the loud, currently in use, device, craning his head to look around the desk it was perched on. He leaned to check underneath, hand wandering for a speaker. “You’re not… Jemma if this is a prank-“

“It’s not, I’m right here,” she insisted. He stood straight, head turning towards her voice but, much to her frustration, he still couldn’t find her. Sighing, she reached out to prod his arm. “Right here-“

“Ahhhh!” Fitz’s shriek split her ears and she covered them with both hands, grimacing as she watched him tap dancing away from her, wildly pawing at his arm. “Get it off me! Are you working with spiders again-”

“Ow… Fitz!” she grumbled. “It wasn’t a spider! It was _me!”_

Again he swept the lab around him, searching for her. “What?”

She lifted a pen, jiggling it in front of him until he spotted it and his eyes became nearly perfect circles. “Jem- Jemma….” He took a breath, evidently trying to steady himself. “I don’t mean to alarm you but… You’re invisible.”

“Well spotted,” she deadpanned.

"Actually no, I can't see you remember?" He chuckled awkwardly at the unamused silence. When she didn't acknowledge the joke he must have sensed she wasn't in a laughing mood and he sobered, stretching his fingers towards her before curling them back to stop himself. “Are you OK?”

It was strange, knowing he couldn’t see her. He couldn’t see the way her eyes had caught on his fingertips, or the way her own hand had reflexively risen to meet his. He didn’t _experience_ her presence if she wasn’t speaking, and it bothered her.

She took a step forward, finding his hand still hovering and pressed hers flat against it, like two people trying to touch through glass. Only they were touching and she felt the warmth of his skin and the muscles shifting beneath it. She couldn’t meet his eyes but this was the next best thing and the way he stared at the empty space where her hand should have been let her know that he knew where she was. For several seconds, the world was still and made up of just them, two bodies, two minds, one problem.

Finally, Fitz let blew out a loud breath, breaking contact. “So… are you?”

Jemma blinked. “Am I what?”

“OK?” he repeated, still trying to look at her even though they both knew he couldn’t. It was reflexive, she knew. She’d be doing the same thing if she were in his place.

“Aside from being unable to see my own reflection?” She shrugged. “I’m not in pain, and I don’t feel light headed or nauseous. I have no obvious symptoms of distress.”

He nodded, relieved. “Good. Good, OK. What happened?”

“It was my own fault,” she admitted, shaking her head in annoyance. “I had to go and test the new camouflage serum before it was ready…. I should have ordered more mice last week but with everything happening I just…” She sighed, shoulders sagging. “We don’t have time for me to be making mistakes like that,” she muttered.

“We’ll find a way to make you visible again,” he assured her.

“Not that, the mice,” she corrected. “ _I’m_ perfectly fine. But all those poor field agents fighting Hydra? They need this _now_ Fitz. If I only had more test subjects I could-“

“You’re not planning on undoing this first?” She didn’t understand his incredulity. She wasn’t in danger, the field agents were. It was simple logic really.

“No. I need you to come with me to pick up the mice that have just arrived,” she explained. “I can perfect the process on them. And it might give me a hint as to how to make myself visible again,” she added when his disbelief only deepened.

His mouth twisted into a frown and, crossing his arms, he tilted his head towards the centrifuge. “What are using that for?”

“Oh,” she waved her hand dismissively, once again realizing too late that the gesture wasn’t going to be useful. “It’s just… I was testing my blood for any anomalies. I wanted to know if it would still be invisible after fractionation. I thought perhaps once the serum was separated from my cells it would be visible again. But my clothes are invisible too, even when I take them off so…” She shrugged, another thing he couldn’t see. “I don’t think that will be the case.”

“You were taking your clothes off…” He muttered the words under his breath and the blush that crawled to the tips of his ears told her he hadn’t meant to say them out loud. “I mean… that’s…  Where are the mice?”

Jemma wasn’t sure if she was happy he couldn’t see the grin spreading across her pink face, or disappointed. A bit of both she decided.

She took his hand, being sure to make as much noise as she could while she walked by clapping her feet on the floor so he’d know where she was going. “I’ll show you. You may need to be the one to sign for them and receive the box,” she warned him. “I wouldn’t want to frighten anyone.”

Fitz refused to leave her side the entire time she was invisible, sternly warning off anyone who might have stepped on her toes or barged into her by mistake, asking her on and off if she was still feeling alright, if she needed anything. Anything she attempted to wear would be rendered as invisible as she was, but she discovered that if she stuck a pen behind her ear he’d be able to spot where she was, and once she’d done that, he was never more than a few feet away.

He did his best to hide his concern but it was as visible as she wasn’t whenever she caught him staring, and in the way he followed her like an imprinted duckling. It was unnecessary but it was sweet and, when she wasn’t stumbling around him, when she could spare a moment to settle herself and watch him back, it was nice. He wasn’t the only uncertain, painfully awkward duckling of the pair of them and he certainly wasn’t the first to imprint himself. It was much easier that he’d stayed on his own than it would have been for her to ask him to.  

When at last she managed to turn herself visible again, appearing before him like something out of Harry Potter, the smile that lit his face was so beautiful she couldn’t help mirroring it back. And he saw it, of course. He knew he’d made her happy without her needing to say a word and that was a gift that she wasn’t ever going to take for granted again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to superirishbreakfasttea for the prompt on tumblr :D
> 
> Also to AgentsofSuperwholocked I am currently working on your request too. :D I just wanted to get the set up right.
> 
> Why does the pen not disappear you ask? Because these stories are purposely ridiculous that's why and this just didn't feel ridiculous enough until I added it XD
> 
> The title of this chapter is after a novel by Andrew Clements that I read as a teenager and loved


	8. Our Own Little Bubble

Jemma wasn’t where he had expected to find her. Fitz had been waiting for nearly half an hour for her to show up for their “dinner date” in the base’s kitchen. It wasn’t much, just reheated spaghetti and a couple of glasses of wine, but he’d been looking forward to it all day.

More specifically, he’d been looking forward to _her._ So when she hadn’t shown up, he’d been more than a little disappointed.

Seeing her now though, the grumble in his throat sharpened into panic.

“Jemma!” he cried.

She was sitting on the floor of a gigantic bubble, the thin film surrounding her shimmering in pink and green beneath the fluorescent lights, its sides wedged snuggly in the doorframe of the lab.

“How long have you been in there?” he demanded. He was already doing the math, finding the volume of the bubble, how much air she’d have, as he clawed at the surface. “Are you feeling lightheaded?”

“Fitz I’m fine,” she assured him, getting to her feet. “The material is completely permeable to oxygen and carbon dioxide.”

The clock that had been ticking in time with his heartbeat quieted and his shoulders sagged in relief. Of course. Of course, Jemma would have thought of that.

“It’s the… “ he wasn’t sure what she’d decided on calling it. He had a few names himself but he thought it would be adding insult to injury to name her invention for her just as she’d gotten herself stuck in it.

“The bubble shield,” she told him brusquely

“Right.” He knew he could do better but he held his tongue. “Wasn’t there-“

“A remote to deactivate it, yes,” she finished. “However…” she sighed tipping her head towards where said remote had been wedged between the bubble and the floor. “It isn’t exactly accessible at the moment.”

“You probably shouldn’t have tried it out right in the doorway,” he pointed out, squinting his eyes at the problem.

“I didn’t do it on purpose!” she exclaimed indignantly. “Something must have- the controls must have been delayed. I thought it wasn’t working and-“ She let out a hiss of frustration, her voice softening at his raised eyebrows. “I’m sorry, I’m just-“

“Hungry,” he finished as his own stomach let out a loud grumble.

“And impatient to get out of here,” she added.

“We can’t cut it,” Fitz reasoned, remembering what she’d been telling him earlier that week.

“It’s bullet proof, fireproof, completely water proof of course. Well water repellent is a better way to put it. It’s actually rather impressive-“

“Maybe now’s not the best time to be bragging about the thing that’s trapped you,” Fitz deadpanned and she frowned.

“Right.”

“It is impressive though,” he admitted, trying not to laugh at her smug smile.  But they weren’t going to cut her out of there, that was for certain. He came to a decision. “Stand back.”

“Fitz what are you-“ she cut herself off with a yelp when he flung himself at the bubble.

He’d rushed in with full force, hoping to dislodge it but, to his horror, he was repelled instead, bouncing off of it as if it were a balloon and flying backwards into the wall with a painful _thunk._

“Fitz!” Jemma cried.

“I’m OK,” he said weakly, sitting up and rubbing the back of his head. His elbow was smarting from where it had hit the wall but nothing seemed broken.

“What were you thinking!” she scolded. “You know you can’t break it!”

“Wasn’t trying to break it,” he muttered. “I was just trying to move it.”

“It’s completely elastic-“

“I figured that out-“

“This is a mess.” She surprised him when tears gathered in the corners of her eyes, her lip wobbling.

“Hey, I’m OK,” he soothed. “Really.”

“It’s not that,” she squeaked. “It’s- we were supposed to be having dinner by now. You and me. And it’s been ages since we’ve been able to sit down together and…. And I’ve _ruined it!”_

“Jemma-“

“I… I was looking forward to it all day,” she sniffed. “I’ve missed you. With work and everything going on I…” she trailed off, blinking back tears.

“Me too,” he admitted. He walked towards the bubble, awkwardly wrapping his arms around it and she pushed her face against it, stretching it against his chest.

It wasn’t much of a hug but it was better than nothing.

“It’s not forever,” he promised. “We’ll be through this soon.”

“And what comes next?” she whispered dejectedly. “More chaos.”

“A home,” he said confidently. “Our home. Dinner together every night.”

She snorted, disbelieving.

“Well almost every night. We can even take a break if you’d like,” he suggested boldly.

“People need us,” she sighed. “And that’s never going to stop. There’s always going to be some new problem, some new evil.” She sighed again and this time he felt her tremble against him. “I’m so tired…” She whispered the words, as if she were ashamed of them, but he understood.

It broke his heart to hear how defeated she was but as he did his best to nuzzle her hair through the bubble, something his mother had once told him came back to him.

“You’re not the only one fighting,” he reminded her gently. “The whole world isn’t on your shoulders Jemma, there’ll be someone to carry it while you rest.” He made a valiant attempt to peck a kiss onto her head through the bubble. “And I’ll always be there to carry you.”

Jemma was silent for a moment, her hand moving up to rest over his chest. Then she moved back, watching him with unguarded adoration.

“I love you.”

They’d spoken those words to each other countless times now but this time they held an intensity that took his breath away.

“I love you too,” he told her warmly. He smiled. “Even when you pester me to eat salad.”

Jemma rolled her eyes. “If you’d put the olive oil dressing on it like I suggest-“ but she cut herself off, eyes widening.

“Oil Fitz!” she exclaimed. “That’s it!”

He caught on immediately. Of course!

“I’ll go get a bottle-“

“Get two!” she shouted after him as he scampered. “Or three!”

Another half hour later and they’d managed to grease down the bubble enough to push it out of the door. Once they’d retrieved the remote, and Jemma had given him a very enthusiastic thank you kiss, they were both getting very hungry.

“You smell like garlic,” Jemma murmured into his mouth.

“And that’s the cue to have supper,” Fitz laughed, pulling away and taking a hold of her hand. “I swear I didn’t eat a single bite without you.”

“I know you didn’t,” she chuckled. She planted a sloppy kiss on his cheek mid-step.

He wanted to kiss her back, keep kissing her, but that could wait until they’d both eaten. They had the rest of the evening for each other and, he knew, the rest of their lives too. Whatever they decided to do with them.


End file.
